


Stand United

by Aermin



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Gen, Mourning, Without letting yourself mourn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-20
Updated: 2009-04-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 16:07:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29103039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aermin/pseuds/Aermin
Summary: The United Continent of North America.
Kudos: 1





	Stand United

As soon as he realized it, Alfred washed his face, and set out from the hotel lobby. A chill wind blew down the otherwise quiet streets, but his footsteps were soft and unhurried. When he arrived at the door to his apartment, he paused.

Everything looked normal; he had seen this hallway every day for the past, well, who knows how many years. Maybe...maybe everything could go back to the ordinary, if he just returned home like nothing happened. Just the act would make it happen.

Then he noticed that the door was unlocked. This was urban America; he _never_ left his door unlocked.

Despite the slow sigh of the door as it swung inward, nothing jumped out of the apartment shadows. Alfred flicked on the lights like he was ripping off a bandaid. No muddy bootprints. No blood on the walls. No blond hair, scattered on the hardwood. Only his jacket, crumpled in the middle of the floor. His glasses were beneath the coffee table, one arm bent haphazardly.

Alfred walked through the empty room, avoiding the sunbeams stretching through his wide picture window. He found another pair of glasses by the bathroom sink, next to the kitchen shears. The glasses were a little rounder, a little heavier than he was used to, but he slipped them on. The prescription was close enough. America and Canada had never seen the world exactly the same, well, until it came to the important things in life.

He crossed in to the kitchen, trying to ignore the living room entirely. The coffee maker was in the kitchen. Coffee helped with just about everything. He added sugar to his cup twice, but it was a few sips before he noticed. Grimacing, he dumped it in the sink, and poured another cup. No sugar this time.

God, what was he going to do? He slumped in his chair, decidedly not looking at his crumpled jacket. He, well, he had thought that there would be more for him to do when he returned to the apartment. Maybe it was because they were...different...from all the deaths in all the wars he’d seen over the years, but if it hadn’t been for that damned video, he would be able to pretend. As it was, he could almost pretend that nothing had happened. That he had just left his stuff laying around. That he’d be able to finish his coffee, put on his favourite jacket, and just go hide under the covers of his bed for the rest of the day.

But he could feel the breeze off Baffin Bay across the back of his neck.

The coffee mug smashed against the wall. Alfred snatched up his jacket, retreated back to the bathroom, and grabbed the shears from the sink. He returned to the kitchen and sat with his back to the door – only, he insisted to himself, because the other chair was now dripping with cold caffeine.

The shears made short work of the back of his jacket. Alfred’s eyes turned cold as he butchered his fancy tablecloth for the new numbers “6” and “3”.

~~~

The rest of the week was a blur of short nights in hotels rooms and unending days of organizing aid to the cities around the 49th parallel. The fall of the major Canadian cities brought back eerie echoes of September 2001, but stretching through five time zones. No one knew precisely where the attacks had come from, and of course many paranoid fingers pointed at the Middle East. Not many people looked north at Russia, but Alfred’s eyes never wavered. That smug, big-nosed bastard was smart enough to not use his nukes against the U.S.A., but he certainly had enough other missiles to send over the Arctic Ocean. He would have thought that Ivan was sharp enough to not mess up, though, to hit the right target. Alfred would have thought that the Russian knew him well enough to, to not...

Aw, damnit.

Today the bureaucratic idiots were on his case about sending more aid to Seattle, Buffalo, or Detroit than to Vancouver, Windsor, Toronto, or Montreal. Just because the remaining Ottawa government hadn’t finished signing the contract to merge with D.C. one-hundred percent just yet. Alfred denied them, and denied them again, and the third time he threatened to throw them out of the building. Then they brought up doubts about the media and communications blackout, especially with regards to concerned relatives and Canadians travelling abroad. On that as well, Alfred wouldn’t give an inch... not even a centimetre! He would accept no help or pity until his enemies were found and destroyed. Alfred would protect his people – he’d protect them _all_. The North was _his_ now, too, even if the bureaucrats claimed that his actions were “unAmerican".

In the end, he threw a clipboard with the opening lines of the Declaration of Independence at the loudest idiot’s head. If that was the case – if their accusations were _true_ – then he was no longer the United States of America.

He would help all his people equally, or else Matthew would never forgive him. And they would now call him “The United Continent of North America”, _thank_ you very much. José wouldn't like it, but he'd understand.

He could do this. He could make it happen.

~~~

The crack and groan of the ice in the Northwest Passage kept him awake at night. The mutter of the Atlantic fishermen grew louder each morning, and the murmur of the First Nations treaty debates in Cascadia filled his lunch break. Firefighters and paramedics flooded north as the customs offices along the border dissolved. The DEW line plagued his nightmares. 

At the end of the week, the treaty of the United Continent of North America was signed. Alfred clasped hands and said his _thank you_ s and his _merci_ s. Then he was ushered off, and told to go eat something, for god’s sake, eat something and sleep for a few hours.

He picked at his food until it got cold, and pulled his jacket out from under the hotel bed. It was just like continuing the day’s work; patching the cuffs, reinforcing the seams. It would never be as good as new, no... It would never, ever be quite as good. But, well, at least he could keep new holes from forming.

The next day Alfred called down to the hotel reception. He needed more thread to change the “63” on the back to a “62”. Québec had spoken, and seceded from the continental alliance. Whatever. Alfred cut off communications, and for good measure, cut off the information network belonging to Québec as well. Couldn’t be too careful now.

He didn’t sleep that night. Too much to do. The melting icepack around Resolute broke with a shock that drove him from his bed. How had...? No. Not thinking about h- _that_. Alfred had touched the Arctic Ocean since 1867; why was it giving him so much trouble _now?_

He needed some damn coffee.

Alfred spent the morning picking out the stitching he’d done the night before. Nunavik had separated from Québec, and requested to be let back into the UCNA. Solidarity with the provinces or something like that. Well, he guessed they were provinces. They weren’t states...were they?

His boss took him down to the hotel’s restaurant that evening, saying something about protein and a balanced diet. A lecture about responsibility for his own health, and therefore, somehow, those around him. Whatever. Alfred didn't really pay attention, but emptied his wine glass a couple times and doodled �Ä�Ç�U�ƒ�� in lines across his napkin. When he stumbled back up to his room, he granted the four territories full state...provincial... _state_ legal status. Why not. What's the difference. There’s nothing wrong with being generous. He just had to sign the papers, and that very act would make it happen.  
  
Hell, he may as well sign the same contracts for Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. Yeah, they were organized and self-governing, but so were the northern territories – provinces – _states_ – and he had to be _responsible_ and _stand up tall_ and all that shit his boss was saying. Responsible. He was responsible. He had to protect everyone. And, if you think about it, the Caribbean was practically in North America, and all those unincorporated Pacific territories were barely farther away than Hawai’i. A stone’s throw. And they were _his_ , anyway.  
  
The “62” has become a “63” again, and now he had to find more fabric so he could appliqué a “67”. He would deal _responsibly_ with all the territorial governments in the morning. He didn’t want to have an argument now; he had to fix his jacket.

~~~  
Alfred awoke to a high-pitched ringing in his ears. God. Too much...whatever it was in the bottle his boss has ordered. But the ringing was from the phone, and not from the tides of Fundy, so Alfred would probably find out what kind of bottle it was, and order it again.  
  
He sat through the same damn meetings all morning. The idiots wanted their telephones, their internet, their television, their aid, money, and imports from the outside. No. Not yet. He wasn’t ready. The memorial was scheduled for the next day. The Ottawa politicians had finally moved from their temporary buildings in Hull-Gatineau, down to D.C., and now everyone was going to go back up to the rubble to leave flowers.  
  
He...he didn’t want to see it. But there was absolutely no way he’d forgive himself for backing out.  
  
The hotel reception tried to flag him down after he left the bureaucrats to fight amongst themselves. Messages for him, somehow getting through the blockade through outdated technology. England, France, and others with worry laced through their messages. Mexico, irritated about the sudden cut-off in trade. Ugh, NAFTA could wait. Oh, and there were Guam and Mariana, furious about the summons to move into Alfred’s house.  
  
Why would they be upset? He would protect them. He would do it properly this time, too.  
  
Alfred slumped in front of his desk, alone and back up in the hotel suite. He could do this. He could pull it all together. But....but it felt like he was forgetting something.  
  
_Right_. That’s it! He snatched two more contracts from his briefcase, and fumbled around for a working pen. So what if he’d promised his boss and all those drooling bureaucrats to not sign anything before running it by them? _He_ was the fucking United S-Continent of North America, here, _not_ them!  
  
Baja California, that was first. He’d meet with Mexico next week, smooth that invasion over with a nice trade agreement, and make sure that no one could sneak up behind him from the peninsula. Next, so small he’d barely ever seen them before: Miquelon and Saint-Pierre. Francis would never notice them missing. And if he did, there was little he’d be able to do about it. Alfred wanted to trust France, but he didn’t know where to look any more. Just that morning he’d had to warn a British ship off the coast of New York. The information blackout was total, even if he had to use torpedoes to make the point clear.  
  
...And if he couldn’t even trust England...  
  
Enough of that; he needed to be more concerned with this side of the Atlantic. It was going to be more difficult to make Baja a state than he thought. Oh well. He didn’t have the manpower for an all-out military take-over right now, because everyone was up north, but soon. Soon. Alfred had planned on handing the two French islands over to the new state of Newfoundland... Wait, Newfoundland and _Labrador_? They were the same state? Alfred checked his jacket. Well, he'd be damned. 

Well, that was stupid. Why would Labrador’s government be all the way on the other side of the island, in the House of Assembly at St. John’s? He didn’t have time to set up a brand new state government right now, whereas Saint-Pierre and Miquelon already had an organized political system...but on the other hand, the islands were _tiny_. Alfred rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to discourage the newly-forming headache. Didn’t make sense to keep the islands separate. They were now part of Newfoundland. Screw Newfoundland-and-Labrador, He could set up a government specifically for Labrador when he had time. There. That was settled, then. He’d work out the details later.

Just one more to deal with. He’d left it for a little while already, and although he’d be quite happy ignoring it, he...he couldn’t face the world with a possible blind spot. The United Continent of North America had to be just that: United. The negotiations that would follow this might even be worse than with Mexico...somehow. But he needed to do this.

Alfred needed Québec back.

He signed another paper, and the act made his decision final. He wouldn’t allow any exceptions, any arguments. If Québec had any issues with being the only francophone state, well, he still had a substantially larger military than them. If they acted up, he’d come down on them hard. They were _his_.

And that was that. They were whole, then, the UCNA. Alfred needed to change his jacket just one last time. His hand much steadier than the night before, and he cut out a neat “70”.

He’d always liked even numbers.

~~~

He was dressed all in black. The trip to Toronto and Ottawa had been...cold. He wanted to blame it on breeze off the Great Lakes, the wind whipping down the Saint Lawrence, that was why his eyes stung. Alfred hadn’t said a word all day. What could he say.

The spirits of the people from the Ca...northern cities were laid to rest, and reconstruction had begun. His boss had finally pressured him into lifting the communications blackout, and letting weary travellers come home. Soon. Soon. He’d...he’d do it later tonight. Maybe tomorrow. That night, at 2am EST, there was supposed to be a meeting of the UN. Alfred hadn’t planned on going—he’d skipped the last one, he hadn’t wanted to leave everyone unprotected—but... But...

Alfred took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He couldn’t protect everyone by hiding in his hotel room. He had to speak with Mexico. He had to find out if there was anyone across the sea that he could still trust.

He had to deal with that bastard, Russia. He had to find out how he’d gotten past the Distant Early Warning system. He had to strike hard and fast, before Russia could hurt anyone else.

The flight didn’t leave for a couple of hours, but there was no way that Alfred could stay in this room any longer. He had to go. He had to move. He couldn’t be a hero any more, but he _could_ protect his people. Everyone he cared about. 

He grabbed his duffle bag and his warm brown jacket, but peered through his glasses that weren’t quite right. The fabric on the back of his jacket was thinning and wearing through. Too many alterations, he supposed. Oh well, he’d find some way to fix it. It was what he did.

Alfred borrowed a long black coat from one of his boss’ aides. It fit well enough, he supposed, but it did nothing to quell the bone-eating chill he felt coming down from Quttinirpaaq. But, you know, he was beginning to enjoy the frost. It kept him awake. It kept him alert.

And Alfred had the world to face.


End file.
